You've been given examples (like altruism and empathy in other animal species) that demonstrate that there are behaviors among some living organisms that would predate any morality constructed by human societies. You have had it explained to you how morality is subjective and relative.

Now, why do you still reject these answers given to the questions you ask and claim to want answered?

"Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has argued that the game theoretic advantages of ethical behavior support the idea that morality is "out there" in a certain sense (as part of the evolutionary fitness landscape).[16] Journalist Robert Wright has similarly argued that natural selection moves sentient species closer to moral truth as time goes on.[17]

Note the "in a certain sense". What he means is that behaviors affect fitness, not that morals reside somewhere.

Quote:Writer Sam Harris has also argued that ethics could be objectively grounded in an understanding of neuroscience. He has admitted to being committed to some form of moral realism (viz. moral claims can really be true or false) and some form of consequentialism (viz. the rightness of an act depends on how it impacts the well-being of conscious creatures).[18]"

Note the "to some form of". What Harris is saying is that the basis of morality may be in how brains work.

(27-05-2015 07:14 AM)ClydeLee Wrote: Is everything people think that is wrong an illusion? Is santa claus an illusion? Is climate change denial a illusion? is an overly massive amount of kids thinking they will grow up to be an astronaut an illusion? It's just things people are functionally told to believe in a lot.

You're confused, the illusion here is not in holding a wrong belief, but in the very meaning of wrong. If a child believes Santa exists, he believe his existence is objective, when he later recognizes that his belief was wrong, the “wrong” is recognized as objectively wrong.

Someone believing that something is objectively wrong, can be wrong about it. We can say they hold a false belief, like one might say of someone who thought the world was flat, but not in the case of someone who thinks it’s wrong to wear jeans with dress shirts.

The illusion here, would be in seeing moral wrongs, as objective wrongs, rather than as subjective wrongs, i.e as in the jeans example.

Quote:Do you think it's objectively wrong for a 3 year old to eat dirt? Not likely, it's just gross and on an off chance harmful to his health with some weird bugs or germs in there, so most parents would tell the kid it's wrong to eat dirt

Yes, particularly if wrong is saying something about what’s harmful to ones health, in the same way that 2+2=5 is wrong, mathematically. If some said it was good, implying that it would be healthy to eat, they would be factually incorrect.

Quote:Why you are hung up on the term illusion is still not being answered.

Because I like the illusory hypothesis, it seems to be the more promising alternative to moral realism, that's aware of our common moral perceptions. It's the view held by folks like Dennet, and Michael Ruse.

"Morality is just a matter of emotions, like liking ice cream and sex and hating toothache and marking student papers. But it is, and has to be, a funny kind of emotion. It has to pretend that it is not that at all! If we thought that morality was no more than liking or not liking spinach, then pretty quickly it would break down. Before long, we would find ourselves saying something like: "Well, morality is a jolly good thing from a personal point of view. When I am hungry or sick, I can rely on my fellow humans to help me. But really it is all bullshit, so when they need help I can and should avoid putting myself out. There is nothing there for me." The trouble is that everyone would start saying this, and so very quickly there would be no morality and society would collapse and each and every one of us would suffer.

So morality has to come across as something that is more than emotion. It has to appear to be objective, even though really it is subjective. "Why should I be good? Why should you be good? Because that is what morality demands of us. It is bigger than the both of us. It is laid on us and we must accept it, just like we must accept that 2 + 2 = 4......Am I now giving the game away? Now you know that morality is an illusion put in place by your genes to make you a social cooperator" - Michael Ruse

So more of the, IT HAST TO, be considered objective or else chaos would ensue... based on no justified evidence. This is constantly repeated without study or issue. There isn't any need for this, it has to be viewed as objective talk, or illusionary terms.

It wouldn't be factually correct to say it's good for the child to eat the dirt, but it's not the case that it's wrong either. The black and white process just is the easy simplified way. Along with, "because I told you" type of parenting that forms the youths thoughts about actions.

"Allow there to be a spectrum in all that you see" - Neil Degrasse Tyson

(27-05-2015 07:50 AM)ClydeLee Wrote: It wouldn't be factually correct to say it's good for the child to eat the dirt, but it's not the case that it's wrong either. The black and white process just is the easy simplified way. Along with, "because I told you" type of parenting that forms the youths thoughts about actions.

Uhm, it is the case that it's objectively wrong, when the meaning of wrong is "what is unhealthy, harmful to you". That when my mother tells me that it's wrong to eat dirt, that when she means is that it's harmful for me to eat it.

Just like if my math teacher tell me that my answer of 5, to the questions of 2+2=, is wrong. Where the wrong here clearly means in a mathematical sense, rather than some subjective sense that it's wrong because 5 is ugly.

(27-05-2015 07:50 AM)ClydeLee Wrote: It wouldn't be factually correct to say it's good for the child to eat the dirt, but it's not the case that it's wrong either. The black and white process just is the easy simplified way. Along with, "because I told you" type of parenting that forms the youths thoughts about actions.

Uhm, it is the case that it's objectively wrong, when the meaning of wrong is "what is unhealthy, harmful to you". That when my mother tells me that it's wrong to eat dirt, that when she means is that it's harmful for me to eat it.

Just like if my math teacher tell me that my answer of 5, to the questions of 2+2=, is wrong. Where the wrong here clearly means in a mathematical sense, rather than some subjective sense that it's wrong because 5 is ugly.

(27-05-2015 08:08 AM)Tomasia Wrote: Uhm, it is the case that it's objectively wrong, when the meaning of wrong is "what is unhealthy, harmful to you". That when my mother tells me that it's wrong to eat dirt, that when she means is that it's harmful for me to eat it.

Just like if my math teacher tell me that my answer of 5, to the questions of 2+2=, is wrong. Where the wrong here clearly means in a mathematical sense, rather than some subjective sense that it's wrong because 5 is ugly.

No, it isn't.

Is it wrong to eat a bacon cheeseburger?

If you are a Semitic person... oooooh

back on my other post train. If wrong means-harmful it's wrong in that essence. But my point is by the mother saying it's wrong instead of using terminology like harmful, it's propagates the mental picture of a right/wrong morality. I'm not certain there is something to make us all view right/wrong as objective designs because so many people are raised like this, making it impossible to test what they really think without influence.

"Allow there to be a spectrum in all that you see" - Neil Degrasse Tyson

(27-05-2015 08:08 AM)Tomasia Wrote: Uhm, it is the case that it's objectively wrong, when the meaning of wrong is "what is unhealthy, harmful to you". That when my mother tells me that it's wrong to eat dirt, that when she means is that it's harmful for me to eat it.

Just like if my math teacher tell me that my answer of 5, to the questions of 2+2=, is wrong. Where the wrong here clearly means in a mathematical sense, rather than some subjective sense that it's wrong because 5 is ugly.

Again it appears your meaning of "objective" is quite your own and unique version. And your analogies are consistently ridiculous and nonsensical (murder and fashion statements, risking eating habits and mathematics). WTAF?

“Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up, must come down, down, down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it.”
— Dan Barker —

(27-05-2015 07:50 AM)ClydeLee Wrote: So more of the, IT HAST TO, be considered objective or else chaos would ensue...

No. A view rejected by Ruse:

"Am I now giving the game away? Now you know that morality is an illusion put in place by your genes to make you a social cooperator, what's to stop you behaving like an ancient Roman? Well, nothing in an objective sense. But you are still a human with your gene-based psychology working flat out to make you think you should be moral. It has been said that the truth will set you free. Don't believe it. David Hume knew the score. It doesn't matter how much philosophical reflection can show that your beliefs and behaviour have no rational foundation, your psychology will make sure you go on living in a normal, happy manner."

Quote:There isn't any need for this, it has to be viewed as objective talk, or illusionary terms.